Toby Young - women don't want most childcare either

[Xenia]

Toby Young in today's Sunday Telegraph magazine Stella argues men do not want even more boring mindless childcare. Well nor do women. So the answer is have good careers as women and then you can avoid that dullness. It is not a gender issue. Clearing up sick is as boring for women as men. Lower earners may well be shunted into that dull stuff and to keep the higher earner man they have to do it but Mr Young needs to know plenty of women don't want to do more childcare either. I always thought two hours a day was pretty good including weekends. Too much more and you'd rather be doing other things.

[ProfPru]

Afraid to say you seem someone one dimensional in your posting style and content, Xenia.

1. We know you work and only took 2 weeks ML
   
2. We know you have 5 kids
   
3. We know they all go to top fee-paying, selective, single sex schools
   
4. We know you have an island.
   

Is there anything else though? Same old same old.

[ipadquietly]

I wonder if the girls in TY's Free School do domestic science and needlework while the boys do metal and wood work?

[VelvetSpoon]

Toby Young really is a complete fool.

His wife must have the patience of a saint.

[ouryve]

Or be as big a fool as he is, Velvet.

[outtolunchagain]

Out of interest who is his wife , I thought she was also a journalist?

[VerityClinch]

He married "a low earner who was just a housewife" not a "real woman"?

I'm "just a housewife".

Does that mean I am not a "real woman"?

[FannyMcNally]

He'd gone a bit quiet so maybe this is his way of triggering our memories. Thanks Toby, I had quite forgotten what an arse you are.

[HandMini]

I can't believe he can say in the same article that he wants to do less childcare but also doesn't want his children cared for by "a succession of nannies". Well what do you want then? Oh, your wife to do it. Of course. Nob.

Also, just out of interest, why do anti-child care arguments always refer to a "succession of nannies" - most of the nanny-using families I know have managed to use the same two or three nannies over long periods (ie, up to age 12/13). Is there some perception that nannies all leave after a year?

[Xenia]

Ah she's interesting, was a solicitor, so potentially could have earned £1m a year but gave it all up to be a domestic slave to a sexist man who earns very little.
www.westlondonmum.co.uk/at-home-with-caroline-bondy/

She se4ems to be one of those not very competent women though who cannot manage work and a family.

"Career and children ? top tip on how do you do it?

I feel incredibly blessed that I don?t do it. I am in awe of women who manage a job and children. I don?t think I have the organizational skills or the energy. I feel like a PA, chef, chauffeur and maid to four very demanding Managing Directors of global companies as it is and I don?t think I could cope with a job on top of that".

Perhaps she would not have made much had she carried on with work either so has to make the housewife thing in relative penury work.

[Portofino]

I am bit bemused as to the whole childcare thing being mindless and little more than being available to clear up sick . I am WOHM myself and always have been but my experience At home, and in the child care settings I have used, is that kids are fun! That for the most part people enjoy being with them/working with them. Of course there are crap bits, but you could say that about any aspect of life really.

[HandMini]

Portofino - did you have mat leave / mat leaves and if so, did you find the childcare fun then when you were doing it fill time?

[Xenia]

TY says he likes the fun bit. It is the 80% of it which is not fun if you have 3 under 3s alone and at the same time as getting them to eat and dress you are also trying to clean the house.

[VelvetSpoon]

She probably would have managed to juggle work and childcare were Mr Young not such an entitled arse.

I can remember watching him on CDWM where she did most of the cooking, as that was clearly beyond him.

[piprabbit]

I find it bizarre that only seeing my children for two hours a day, 7 days a week, could be considered in anyway aspirational.

Toby Young married a qualified solicitor, if she counts as a 'low earner' heaven help the rest of us.

[ohforfoxsake]

The more I read Xenia's posts, the more I think she is a figment of someone's imagination . She is far too sexist to be a "real woman".

Sometimes I think she has a fair point to make - and I agree that women should not completely give up working. But don't you get bored of saying the same old shite time after time?

'real women'? Really?

[Slainte]

He just sounds a nightmare to be married to. Xenia, he's not the only one who sounds a nightmare to be married to.

[musu]

I find it bizarre that only seeing my children for two hours a day, 7 days a week, could be considered in anyway aspirational

You've clearly not spent a week with my ds

[Portofino]

Hand mini, yes, I six months ML and I did enjoy it. I had a few months off a couple of years later when we moved to Belgium and I enjoyed that too. I have not had 3 under 3 though and I can imagine that would be bloody hard. But mindless?

[twooter]

"She se4ems to be one of those not very competent women though who cannot manage work and a family.

"Career and children ? top tip on how do you do it?

I feel incredibly blessed that I don?t do it. I am in awe of women who manage a job and children. I don?t think I have the organizational skills or the energy. I feel like a PA, chef, chauffeur and maid to four very demanding Managing Directors of global companies as it is and I don?t think I could cope with a job on top of that".

Perhaps she would not have made much had she carried on with work either so has to make the housewife thing in relative penury work."

Or maybe she chooses to look after her own children, but the guilt of not working leads her to flatter wohm.

Don't mistake choosing to look after your own children with incompetence.

[ExcuseTypos]

"He married a low earner who was just a housewife" not a "real woman"

"She se4ems to be one of those not very competent women though who cannot manage work and a family."

Xenia why would anyone listen to you or indeed have a discussion with you, when you spout such utter woman hating rubbish.


Are you just after a bun fight?

[Portofino]

Xenia seems to forget that there aren't enough of those super high paying roles available for us ALL to have one. And if there were, who would do her cleaning and look after her children?

[tribpot]

In fairness presumably men could take the low paying, trad female roles, freeing up any number of high flying executive positions for us to fill :) There still probably wouldn't be enough to go around but god knows there'd be a damn sight more than there are now!

I should stress I am not suggesting this as a serious way of implementing the Xenian Constitution, just pointing it out.

[AngiBolen]

I love spending time with my children. Yes, sometimes you have to wipe up sick/poo/snot, and help them learn times tables, but it also involves picnics in the park with someone who loves me more than anyone else in the who wide world, snuggles up with me when they are tiered after lunch, want me to roll down a hill with them in the park, wants me to kiss their knees better when they fall over. I don't want someone else enjoying those moments, I want them myself, even if I occasionally have to clean up sick. (I disagree it's only 20% fun, but then I don't have TY's DC)

Xenia, I'm sorry you must have found your weekends so dull for so many years.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

For a feminist Xenia, you really seem to disrespect the choices women have made in their lives. If they differ from the choices you have made or would make, then they are wrong.

Thats not how it works.